


What to Get a Pentaghast

by vasaris



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Forever Angst Valentine's Day Challenge (friendship), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9676214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasaris/pseuds/vasaris
Summary: Cassandra, Varric, and a trip up the Wounded Coast.  What could go wrong?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chrissy and Carrie for the beta. Y'all are awesome

“So what’re you doing for the big day, Seeker?”

Cassandra Pentaghast blinked, looking up from her desk, concerned that she was hallucinating. But no, the ebullient voice did indeed belong to what Leliana liked to call ‘the greatest frenemy a straight laced girl could have, outside of a fifth of Flames of Our Lady.’ Varric Tethras was charming enough that he could likely make a girl’s underwear fall to the floor faster than horrifically fortified wine, but since he normally used his powers for good, you could trust your undergarments would remain firmly in place.

Unless you were a dwarven engineer named Bianca, but after the debacle that was Corypheus, no one liked to talk about that.

Cassandra set aside her quill. She hadn’t been enjoying writing reports anyway.

“I am sure that I have no idea what you mean, Varric.”

“Come on, it’s Lovers’ day, my little hound of shining justice! You must have plans.”

“Ah. _That_ big day. I did wonder.”

“What other big days can there be?”

She raised an eyebrow, snorting lightly.

“Okay, okay. There’s that ridiculous thing celebrating me being the Viscount of Kirkwall coming up, but I already _know_ what you’re doing for that. Bran told me, you’re going to come and wear shiny armor and charm money out of those maggots I have to call nobles.  Preferrably with your sword arm. Good luck with that, by the way. I at least get to tax the stupid bastards and they’re not allowed to complain sine it’s their fault I’ve got the stupid chair and the idiotic circlet that came with it.”

At this, her second eyebrow rose and she sat back, trying to look stern, for all the good it did when Varric was on a roll.

“You are lucky they do not chase you through your own city with pitchforks,” Cassandra told him a little acerbically.

“Are you kidding, Seeker? They’d end up stabbing themselves… Which, hey! Great idea, I wonder if Bran could run with it for the party.”

Cassandra couldn’t help it. She laughed.

“What is it you want, Varric?”

“Well, for you to answer my question.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I am working, much as I always am.”

“Thought so,” said Varric. “Now, hear me out, Seeker. I was thinking that we could go on a little trip. You, me… it’ll be fun.”

“You wish to invite _me_?” She stared at him, voice rising in incredulity. “On a trip. For _Lovers’ Day.”_

Varric winced. “You don’t have to say it like _that_ , Seeker.”

Cassandra frowned at him.

“We are _not_ lovers, why would you ask such a thing?”

“Now, Seeker, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

She frowned a little harder, narrowing her eyes. “I suppose that this could be said to be true.”

He looked up at her, licking his lips, eyes darting about. She flashed him a grin at his discomfiture.

“You have written me _porn_ , Varric. Either we are complete and utter strangers, or we are _very_ good friends.”

He coughed. “ _Swords and Shields_ isn’t just for you, Seeker.”

“Not once I started lending it out to Dorian and the Inquisitor, no,” she told him smugly. “And a little bird told me that it is actually selling quite well in Orlais, at least, so you should never have given up on it.”

He glared at her, though it didn’t hold much heat, and she chuckled.

“What is it you need, Varric, that you’d come all this way, months in advance, to ask me out on a _Lovers’ Day_ expedition?”

“To get out of Kirkwall,” he told her bluntly. “The first few years while I was rebuilding the city, nobody really paid attention to the fact that I’m not married and don’t exactly have a lot of prospects.”

“I am sure that you could find some,” Cassandra said, letting the words trail off slowly. “There are a number of dwarves in Kirkwall.”

“Yes, yes. Many of them with pretty daughters they cheerfully throw at me, some with slingshots, some with catapults… a few have started up with actual trebuchets, I’ll have you know.”

“And none of them are named Bianca, I suppose.”

He scowled at her. “Several of them are. It was a popular name for about fifteen years.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “All right, Varric. I will gladly accompany you on a trip for Lover’s Day. Where are we going?”

“Up the Wounded Coast – don’t worry, it’ll be fun. Just, yanno. Bring your armor. And your sword.”

“No one will believe that you are having a romantic assignation if we’re wearing armor Varric.”

“What? No! I don’t want them to think you’re sleeping with me, for Maker’s sake!” He eyed her warily. “I can come up with better lies than that – lies that people would _believe_ , for one. I just want to be out of town for all of the bloody _parties.”_

“And what if I wanted to go to the parties?”

“Seeker, you hate dresses, generally despise wine, and would start cutting down anyone who got in the way of the little cakes… Hey, there’s a great idea. I’ll give _them_ pitchforks and _you_ petite fours and see who comes out on top!”

“Varric.”

“It’d be great!”

“I will bring armor, sword, and a shield, shall I?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Should I expect bandits?”

“Seeker,” he said in the voice that she always expected to cause undergarments to shred and skirts to fly skyward. “You know me better than that. I can do much better than _bandits._ ”

~~~ 

“Varric. You are an asshole!” Cassandra hissed at him, months later, peering around a low rock formation to look at the mining pit below. “You might have mentioned that there would be _dragons_.”

“I was going to get you chocolates, Seeker,” he huffed back, craning his neck to look back over the boulder, “but the snooty Orlesian guy in Hightown is a dick. So I got you something else. In fairness to me, I wasn’t expecting more than one dragon. This is a much more bountiful gift than I was anticipating.”

“Asshole.”

“What else do you give a Pentaghast for Lovers’ Day, I ask you?”

“A suitable candidate for paramour might have been nice,” she told him primly as one of the High Dragons roared.

“Darling,” came another voice from below them on the trail, “if you wanted one of those, you’d have one already.”

“Dorian?”

“Guilty as charged, my dear lady Seeker. Varric here wrote me that he wanted to do a spot of dragon hunting for Lovers’ Day, and how in the world could I say no?” Dorian tossed her a vial of lurid orange-red liquid. “Bottoms up. Our little darlings over there clearly breathe fire, so a bit of fire resistance is likely to be appreciated.”

“Gimme one of those, yeah? Tevinter wanker.” Sera appeared out of nowhere, bow in hand and wearing mustard spattered leathers. “You know that Bull is going to kill you, right?”

“Only to a little death, Sera,” said Dorian. “And it’s his own fault for going with Frederick to study dragons in the Wastes.”

“I only told you that, because I wanted it to be a surprise.” Iron Bull came down from further up the path. “You know your people call this the Bone Pit _because dragons,_ right?”

Varric nodded. “We’ve gotta clean them out every few years.”

“Man. Dorian, we should live in Kirkwall.”

“It’s rather difficult to make a difference in the Magisterium if I’m living here, you giant oaf.”

“Not to mention,” said Varric, “he’d cause half of the nobles to implode just by existing. Which, along with the pitchforks and petite fours would eliminate about half of my problems.”

“Yeah?” asked Sera. “Pitchforks an’, wot, those little cakes?”

“I was going to give the pitchforks to my nobles.”

“Pissant little bungholes wouldn’t know what to do with ‘em, they’d stab each other. Ooooh. That’s the point, innit?”

“And put Cassandra in charge of the little cakes.”

“Sound tactics,” said Bull. “She’d do a great job of protecting them from idiots with improvised polearms.”

“You are all mad,” said Cassandra. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Varric turned to her. “It turned out we were all going to be in the area, which I know because I actually _correspond_ with people. The Inquisitor couldn’t make it, and fuck knows where Blackwall is, since the Wardens are shut up tighter than Vivienne’s purse – but I’ve missed you crazy kids. And I knew that I kind of have a dragon.”

“Or two.” Dorian waved a languid hand. “An embarrassment of riches, it seems.”

“Ye-ah! What could be better than a dragon!” crowed Bull. “TWO DRAGONS. It’ll be EPIC.”

“So you invited us all out for a Lovers’ Day dragon-slaying party?” Cassandra felt her lips twitch. “You are a fool, Varric. But you are our fool. I just wish we had Cullen and the Inquisitor here; we could play Wicked Grace.”

Dorian reached out and tugged on a lock of her hair, a familiarity she wouldn’t normally allow anyone. “Lovers’ day is for the people we love and the things we love doing, right?”

She tilted her head, smiling. “Dragon slaying _is_ fun.”

“Then we should get to it,” said Varric.

~~~

All things considered, Cassandra had to concede that it _was_ an enjoyable afternoon. And ultimately very profitable for her and the growing numbers of Seekers of Truth.

Three weeks later, when the Viscount of Kirkwall  held the annual gala celebrating his ascension to the throne, Cassandra noted that the buffet table had quite a lot of little cakes, in a variety of shapes and sizes.

 And the walls sported a decorative array of pitchforks. 

 

 

 


End file.
